NADA POROPAT JELETIC (Juraj Dobrila University of Pula)

Italophonic Configurations in the Istrian Contact Zone:
Repertoire Dynamics, Polyglossic Stratification and Language Governance Regimes

This contribution examines the sociolinguistic ecology of the Istrian peninsula as a paradigmatic configuration of contact-driven multilingual organization within a borderland context. Rather than approaching Istria as a peripheral bilingual space, it is conceptualized as a historically stratified communicative ecosystem in which diasystemic Romance relations and intersystemic Slavic–Romance interactions jointly structure linguistic repertoires, identity practices, and institutional multilingualism. This perspective departs from territorially bounded models of language distribution and advances an ecological framework capable of capturing the dynamic circulation of linguistic resources across overlapping social, institutional and symbolic domains.

From a historical, sociolinguistic and glottopolitical standpoint, Istria emerges as a linguistically layered landscape shaped by successive processes of Romanization, Venetian expansion, imperial administration, nationalist restructuring and post-socialist state formation. These trajectories have produced a complex multilingual configuration in which Croatian, Italian, Slovene, Istrovenetian, Chakavian, Istriot and Istroromanian coexist within asymmetrical polyglossic arrangements marked by differentiated prestige and functionally stratified domains of use. Particular attention is devoted to the internal stratification of the Italophone repertoire. While Italian enjoys constitutional recognition and institutional parity within regional bilingualism, its everyday communicative reach remains limited. By contrast, Istrovenetian continues to function as the vernacular of interpersonal interaction and collective memory, despite lacking formal legal status.

Revisiting the metaphor of linguistic insularity, the notion of “reef ecologies” (Blagoni 2007, Blagoni et al. 2016) is introduced in order to reconceptualize minority language communities as embedded and relational nodes, rather than isolated islands. Within this broader ecology, the endangered Istriot varieties represent a critical case of micro-language vulnerability. As the last remnant of pre-Venetian Romance Istria, Istriot constitutes a living record of Adriatic Romanity, preserving both historically significant linguistic features and contact-induced structural innovations. Despite demographic decline and functional marginalization, it continues to exhibit symbolic resilience, highlighting the need for ethnographic and repertoire-oriented approaches.

Finally, a speaker-centered perspective foregrounds multilingual agency as a central mechanism in the reproduction of linguistic ecologies (Blagoni 2007, Blagoni et al. 2018). Istria thus emerges as a laboratory of multilingualism, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is most effectively sustained not through isolationist preservation strategies, but through ecological integration, functional redistribution and socially grounded language policy.

ALBERTO GIUDICI (University of Teacher Education of the Grisons; University of Zürich)

The Istriot Noun Phrase and Language Contact 

This talk will present a case study (Giudici & Zanini 2021) which first described the ongoing grammaticalization of an Istriot plural indefinite quantifier uni/une, a novelty in the Italo-Romance domain. Following a brief survey of plural indefinites crosslinguistically and in Slavic varieties in contact with Istriot, the study and the possible implications of its findings will be discussed in more detail, describing the current extent of the grammaticalization of uni/une, the possible causes of this shift, and its expected future development based on the typical grammaticalization path of indefinites.

The analysis focuses in particular on identifying the underlying motivations for the introduction of uni/une in this variety, offering a quantitative account based on the types of nouns with which speakers associate these forms (pluralia tantum, plural-dominant nouns, and count nouns). Although uni/une are attested in medieval Italo-Romance varieties, the working hypothesis favors an explanation grounded in language contact with Slavic languages. The findings are further supported by a comparative study of the Istro-Venetan variety of Buie/Buje, where Italian is more widespread within the community than in Sissano (Giudici & Zanini, accepted).

Finally, an additional case of language contact is presented. A recent study of the inflectional classes of Sissanese (Giudici 2025) provides the first systematic organization of data for an Istriot variety. In addition to offering a synchronic description, the study adopts a diachronic perspective to demonstrate the influence exerted by Istro-Venetan. 

References

Giudici, Alberto, & Zanini, Chiara. (2021). A plural indefinite quantifier on the Romance-Slavic border. Word Structure, 14(2), 195–225.

Giudici, Alberto. (2025). Inflectional Classes in Istriot: a first systematisation in diachrony and synchrony, in Cristelli, S., Breimaier, F., Loporcaro, M., Negrinelli, S., Paciaroni, T., Wild, M. (a c. di) Formal studies in Italo-Romance morphology and syntax, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, De Gruyter, 127-142.

Giudici, Alberto, & Zanini, Chiara. (accepted). “Uni pantaloni” e “une forbici”: un caso di contatto linguistico. Atti del XXXI Convegno Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza, Lecce 30 giugno-5 luglio 2025, edited by Marcello Aprile, Debora de Fazio, Antonio Montinaro, Rocco Luigi Nichil. Strasbourg, Eliphi.

RITA RUMBOLDT (FU Berlin)

The Development of uni in Istriot 

This research focuses Istriot, an endangered Romance variety spoken by some 400 people in several villages scattered across southwestern Istria, in today’s Croatia. In particular, it presents a synchronic investigation into the development of a plural indefinite determiner, uni/une, which would be a novelty in the Italo-Romance domain. Prior research (Giudici & Zanini 2021) suggests that its use is increasingly acceptable beyond the grammaticalizing context of pluralia tantum nouns, especially to younger speakers. Comparing this situation with the stages typical of the crosslinguistic development of indefinites, as described in Heine (1997) and Haspelmath (1997), they suggest that uni/une may be shifting from what Heine calls “specific markers” to “non-specific markers” in a development that would ultimately lead to “generalized markers” such as Spanish unas/unos.

Using a combination of self-paced reading and interpretation tasks, this study aims to expand and test this prediction: if it is in fact grammaticalizing, uni will show signs of spreading towards non-specific reference, as well as from pluralia tantum to other noun classes, especially among younger speakers. In order to pinpoint the exact location of uni on the implicational hierarchy of indefinite reference, the smallest contrast, that between specific known and specific unknown indefinites (Haspelmath 1997) is operationalized. In many languages, including both English and Istriot, this contrast is only visible in context, as in the difference between the following examples:

(1) Somebody called while you were away: guess who!

(2) I heard something, but I couldn't tell what kind of sound it was. (Haspelmath 1997: 2)

Moreover, the research consists of two separate experiments, one conducted in Istriot and one in Italian, offering a comparative approach to a related and neighboring language in which this element is unavailable, as well as a testing ground for the instrument itself before the limited pool of Istriot speakers was tested.

References

Giudici, Alberto, & Zanini, Chiara. (2021). A plural indefinite quantifier on the Romance-Slavic border. Word Structure, 14(2), 195–225.

Haspelmath, Martin. (1997). Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford University Press.

Heine, Bernd. (1997). Cognitive Foundations of Grammar. Oxford University Press.

von Heusinger, Klaus. (2002). Specificity and Definiteness in Sentence and Discourse Structure. Journal of Semantics, 19(3), 245–274. https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/19.3.245